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If we focus on Amazon, lack of information is going to be asymmetric, with Amazon as a large employer holding the informational advantage. Amazon can see what
by TheCowboy 11y ago
If we focus on Amazon, lack of information is going to be asymmetric, with Amazon as a large employer holding the informational advantage. Amazon can see what the salaries are, what people accept, and what people were making when they left. If people want to try bargaining up because they think they deserve more, Amazon knows better if it can ignore the request and find the same talent for less.
And I don't see how it's relevant to mention how workers have "above median wages" compared to national figures. If anything, wouldn't that imply that Amazon is blindly giving out too much money and ignoring this very public information? That's implying an unlikely level of incompetence, when it's really about variation within the labor market.
- nickff 11y agoYou assume that more information asymmetry always helps the employer; it is also possible that a lack of information makes the employee think they're getting a 'bad deal', because they overestimate how much their coworkers make (possibly due to something akin to impostor syndrome). If Amazon thinks they can find someone of equal skill for less money, they should make the change, and if the employee thinks they are worth more than they can get with Amazon, then they should leave; I really don't understand your (second?) point. I never said the above-median wages had anything to do with national figures; I meant that depending on what the employee and employer were bargaining around (more likely to be company median wages than national), the comparison would help the employees bargain up half the time, and the employers bargain down half the time.